The story of Fat Stone Farm in Lyme: Sweet Tranquility Amidst the Maple Trees

From upper left: The sugar shack, Bill tapping a tree; the new bottles; Liz collecting firewood. PHOTOS PROVIDED BY FAT STONE FARM

The warm, rich, caramel flavor of dark maple syrup is sure to bring a smile to your face and conjure comforting memories. You may reminisce of being curled up with a good book by a warm fire, or of a walk through the snow filled woods on a brisk winter day. Here in New England, maple syrup is a timeless favorite that cannot be forgotten.

In Lyme, Connecticut, Liz and Bill Farrell are award-winning maple syrup producers who own and operate Fat Stone Farm. The sweet reward of maple syrup is months in the making. As the crisp, dry air and the smell of freshly fallen leaves begin to fade in the forests in autumn, Bill and team can be found busily inspecting and repairing dozens of miles of tubing in preparation for the maple sugaring season.

This process involves long days meticulously moving amidst the maple trees. Liz and Bill tap around 3,000 trees in 85 acres of sugar bush among 350 acres of woods. They have worked with landowners over the past 15 years to manage the sugar bushes organically.

For example, USDA Certified Organic guidelines specify that synthetic pesticides cannot be sprayed on or near the trees. The trees must also be a certain diameter which enables the trees to develop to a good level of health and maturity so they can be tapped sustainably over time.

The intention for this year is to tap in mid-January. Liz and Bill like to tap the maple trees when the temperature is below freezing outside. This prevents sap from running from the tree while they drill the hole. When they are collecting the sap, conditions of around 22 degrees Fahrenheit at night and around 40 degrees during the day work well for their operation. They hope for around six weeks of conditions like this. They have installed modern equipment with small vacuum pumps that are battery operated and rather than using large vacuum pumps, they have seven collection points.

Around one third of the trees they tap are red maples, and about two thirds are sugar maples. Red maples typically produce a sap which has a sugar content of about 1% while sugar maples typically produce a sap which a sugar content of about 2%. Amazingly, it takes around 60-65 gallons of sap from their mix of red and sugar maples to make one gallon of maple syrup. In one season, Liz and Bill may collect 50,000-60,000 gallons of sap.

To abide by USDA Certified Organic guidelines, Liz and Bill use stainless steel equipment and an organic defoaming agent of either USDA Certified Organic safflower or sunflower oil in their maple syrup operation. Their reverse osmosis system removes some water from the sap which allows them to reduce the amount of time spent boiling it. They use firewood to heat the sap during the boiling process. Then, they place their finished product – delicious maple syrup – in glass bottles.

Liz emphasizes the purity of miraculous maple syrup: “We are biased, but it is the purest sweetener! At its essence, the sap is water that has been filtered by a tree. We boil it down using so much care. It is not a highly processed sweetener.”

Although the practices they have in place are modern, making maple syrup has been done in New England for hundreds of years. The International Maple Museum Centre in Croghan, New York which was founded in 1977 with the goal of preserving historic maple syrup making techniques including those used by Native Americans. This nonprofit has a large collection of historic tools, equipment, and archives. According to The Maple Sugar Book written by Helen and Scott Nearing, who are known for popularizing the back-to-the-land movement, an Iroquois legend details the discovery of maple syrup.

According to the legend, Iroquois Chief Woksis had thrown his tomahawk into a tree on a cold winter’s day, and as the weather warmed up, sap began to flow from the tree into a nearby vessel. His wife needed water for cooking and used the sap. To her and the Chief’s surprise, it was deliciously sweet.

Bill reducing syrup in the sugar shack, the new bottles

Liz and Bill are passionate about growing their own food and being as self-sufficient as they can be. Bill’s exposure to farming was early on in his life at a haying and beef operation in East Haddam. He worked at a relative’s horse farm when he was 16 and on a farm in Maryland at age 17 during his senior year of high school. These formative experiences seeded a passion for farming that would come to fruition years later.

Liz has fond memories of her parent’s vegetable and flower gardens in Baltimore, Maryland. She grew up hearing old stories about her great grandparents who grew up on a farm and later moved to the city limits. Before there were many grocery stores, her great grandparents would have their rural relatives send boxes of food including milk and butter on a train into Baltimore so they could continue to enjoy great food.

When Liz was growing up, her great aunt would often go peach picking away from the city and bring bushels of peaches back to the house. Her mother and grandparents knew how to preserve foods, a skill that is not as widely known today. Drying, fermenting, pickling, canning, curing, and making jam or jelly all used to be quite common.

While Bill spent the early part of his career working in finance, he began to realize that our food system was in the process of failing due for a myriad of reasons including toxins being applied to food and soil erosion. He thought it was critical to know how to grow and preserve foods of all types.

Liz and Bill were united in their goal to grow their own food and purchased their farm in Lyme which they operated as a hobby farm for the first ten years. Sustainability was their top focus right from the start – both economically and environmentally. They raised all types of animals including cows, pigs, and sheep.

They focused on perennial agriculture because they were interested in growing crops where the roots could continue to stabilize the soil 365 days per year. They experimented with growing around 60 different types of crops and evaluated everything on a per square foot basis in terms of yield, price, and profit per space. They also installed solar arrays, solar hot water, and a cistern for irrigation purposes. Their focus has always been on no-till, organic practices.

In addition to maple syrup, they produce an always-changing array of delicious products including elderberry juice, elderberry apple shots, apple cider vinegar infused with ginger and turmeric, and recently started a new line of organic sodas. One of their organic sodas is organic vanilla maple, of course.

Liz and Bill are certainly down-toearth and have a playful sense of humor. They like to laugh at the fact that their property is filled with many “fat stones.” Joking aside, Liz and Bill provide exceptionally high-quality service to their customers, both individuals and the retailers who stock their products. Bill also recently started teaching Maple 101 to the Maple Syrup Producers Association of Connecticut in 2023.

When asked why she loves being a farmer, Liz thoughtfully shares, “It’s very holistic. There’s nothing like dirt, sun, wind, snow, and the stars at night. When we go out when it’s maple sugar season we’re often boiling into the night, and who walks out in February to look at the stars? It’s incredible.”

To purchase USDA Certified Organic maple syrup and other products from Fat Stone Farm, you can find them in approximately 70 stores around Connecticut, at local farmers markets, or shop online at www.fat-stone-farm.com or www.healthyplaneat.com